I would like to start out my message by welcoming our new and returning members! The Executive Board members and I are grateful to you for your loyal support through membership and volunteerism. You are MSHA’s strength and inspiration!

MSHA has been very active in representing and keeping our members informed of the state and national-level professional endeavors. I’m grateful to the past Presidents, Executive Board members, MSHA Central Office staff, and numerous volunteers who have devoted their time and resources to make MSHA, one of the highly active state associations that support and define our professions of speech-language pathology and audiology.

I am excited to share with you about the programs and events that await us in 2014-2015. The fall MSHA Workshop is going to be held on October 31 and November 1, 2015. Our featured speaker is Lisa Scott, PhD, CCC-SLP. The Convention Planning Team members have already begun their planning sessions to WIN! Our 2015 convention theme is: Winning Together: The Power of Us. The convention chairs, Ilene Elmlinger and Leanna Lawrence are going to lead the team in organizing another fabulous convention at Osage Beach on April 16-19, 2015. Please stay tuned for more details.

At our recent board retreat, we discussed effective ways to communicate with our members. To reach you efficiently with EB news and other time-sensitive information for our members, we would like to have a quick email at the end of every week, starting in August. It will be called MSHA e-Weekly. If you are interested, please be a part of the MSHA listserv to receive the news. If you need to submit any information that you would like to share with our members during a particular week, please email me at jray@semo.edu.

As the planning for our future endeavors is in progress, we will soon revise and update the MSHA Strategic Plan chart. This will be a super-exciting year for me, because I look forward to serving MSHA as one of the board members and volunteers. There is only one outcome, when we work together…..SUCCESS! Help us continue the tradition of success by making plans to attend our fall workshop and spring convention. Also, please consider representing yourself and your talents by volunteering at any level you wish.

"It is not a question of how well each process works; the question is how well they all work together." --Lloyd Dobens

I invite you to e-mail me to share any ideas, thoughts or feedback to improve our Association. Also, please feel free to contact any Board Member or Committee Chair.

In closing, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone for envisioning our future and walking the path to a better tomorrow! I wish you a productive year, filled with excitement, success, and happiness!